Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2012, published 102nd ILC session (2013)

Certification of Able Seamen Convention, 1946 (No. 74) - Guinea-Bissau (Ratification: 1977)

Other comments on C074

Direct Request

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Article 2 of the Convention. Conditions for certification of able seamen. The Committee notes the Government’s statement that it is currently in the process of ratifying the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006), and that it is therefore prevented from reporting on the application of the present Convention. The Government reports that a gap analysis of the national maritime legislation has already been completed with the assistance of the Office and that the MLC, 2006, is now pending tabling in the Popular National Assembly. Recalling the Government’s indication in previous reports that while the outdated Decree No. 15.969 of 15 October 1964 dealt with the subject matter of the Convention, the revised General Labour Law would include a chapter of maritime labour, the Committee requests the Government to indicate any progress made in this regard and to transmit a copy of any new legal text which may not have been previously communicated to the Office.

Further, the Committee recalls that, in the course of the negotiations that eventually led to the adoption of the MLC, 2006, it was agreed that the responsibility for seafarers’ training and certification – except for ships’ cooks – should be transferred to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and that the provisions of the present Convention would be eventually superseded by new mandatory provisions to be adopted under the Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW Convention). The Committee notes, in this respect, that the Manila amendments to the STCW Convention and Code, adopted in June 2010 and entered into force on 1 January 2012, contain in Regulation II/5 new requirements for certification of ratings as able seafarers deck. Recalling that the Government continues to be bound by the provisions of Convention No. 74 until the MLC, 2006, enters into force for Guinea-Bissau, the Committee requests the Government to keep the Office informed of any developments regarding the process of ratification and effective implementation of the MLC, 2006.